The Poet Game

Listen while you read: https://youtu.be/4J4jdu5Pi00

(Note:  if you've been clicking on the audio link in these posts, I am happy to tell you that I have corrected this feature to allow the video to open in a new window. Enjoy!)

Down by the river junior year, walking with my girl
And we came upon a place there in the tall grass
where a couple had been making love
and left the marks of their embrace
I said to her, "Looks like they had some fun."
She said to me, "Let's do the same."
And still I taste her kisses and her freckles in the sun
when I play the poet game

~  Greg Brown

Today is World Poetry Day! Held on March 21 every year, the UNESCO-declared commemoration is meant to celebrate "cultural expression and identity that comes through poetry." In every culture, on every continent, "poetry speaks to our common humanity and shared values." I have always believed that if poets ruled the world, there would be peace.

Greg Brown's beautiful song, "The Poet Game" was released in 1994 on the album of the same name.  Although Ani DiFranco does an equally gorgeous version of it, I had to go with the song's poet on this one. The poem/song is made up of seven seemingly unrelated vignettes, each one ending in a reference to "the poet game." And each verse speaks of our shared humanity, for better or worse. In a January 1998 interview for No Depression, a journal of roots music, Brown said, "I see songs or poems as gifts. And once they're out there, they belong to whoever hears them or sings them. People can use them the way they want. I love it." This song is indeed a gift, and I am using it to acknowledge and praise the art of poetry.

I wrote my first poem, one celebrating spring, when I was seven. Hear the brook's running voices / and the robins' sweet rejoices / Hear the bluejays calling out / Pleasant calmness all about. That's the first verse; I will spare you the rest. (Clearly, I could not identify the bluejay's call. Pleasant calmness? I don't think so.) But that poem marked the beginning of a lifelong love of poetry for me. I embrace the label of "poet," and although I do not write poetry often enough, I have penned a few that I still love. I hope I have a couple more good ones inside me.

I am compelled to add another of the verses of "The Poet Game." Note how it still resonates more than two decades since it was written:

I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall
and I cried out in a song:
If we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me, you all --
Why does good change take so long?
Why does the color of your skin or who you choose to love
still lead to such anger and pain?
And why do I think it's any help for me to still dream
of playing the poet game?

Because it's a game worth playing.